ArticleGlobalization and health2020
Pseudoscientific beliefs and psychopathological risks increase after COVID-19 social quarantine.
Article in Globalization and health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 48 citations in OpenAlex.
- The many manifestations of magical thinking: a systematic review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Beneath the Surface of Unfounded Belief Systems: An Extended Test of the Dimensionality Hypothesis.Scandinavian journal of psychology · 2026Article
- Effectiveness of Sinovac vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 (CoronaVac) in reducing in-hospital mortality in individuals with COVID-19 and schizophrenia: a retrospective cohort study.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Article
- When you avoid your feelings, you may feel even worse: how depersonalization puts you at risk of depression.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Psychological Toll of the COVID-19 Pandemic: An In-Depth Exploration of Anxiety, Depression, and Insomnia and the Influence of Quarantine Measures on Daily Life.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- COVID-19 Preventive Practices, Psychological Distress, and Reported Barriers to Healthcare Access during the Pandemic among Adult Community Members in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Phone Survey.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2023Article
- Who falls for fake news? Psychological and clinical profiling evidence of fake news consumers.Personality and individual differences · 2023Article
- Facing the pandemic and lockdown: an insight on mental health from a longitudinal study using diaries.Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2022Article
- Impact of conspiracist ideation and psychotic-like experiences in patients with schizophrenia during the COVID-19 crisis.Journal of psychiatric research · 2022Article
- Statistical indicators of compliance with anti-COVID-19 public health measures at European airports.International journal of disaster risk reduction : IJDRR · 2022Article
- Critical thinking predicts reductions in Spanish physicians' stress levels and promotes fake news detection.Thinking skills and creativity · 2021Article
- The causes, impacts and countermeasures of COVID-19 "Infodemic": A systematic review using narrative synthesis.Information processing & management · 2021Article
- Trends of new-onset psychosis or mania in psychiatric emergency departments during the COVID19 pandemic: a longitudinal comparative study.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Irrational Beliefs about COVID-19: A Scoping Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Self-isolation, psychotic symptoms and cognitive problems during the COVID-19 worldwide outbreak.Psychiatry research · 2021Article
- Schizophrenia during the COVID-19 pandemic.Current opinion in psychiatry · 2021Review
- Analysis of personal and national factors that influence depression in individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic: a web-based cross-sectional survey.Globalization and health · 2021Article
- Nationwide Survey in Greece about Knowledge, Risk Perceptions, and Preventive Behaviors for COVID-19 during the General Lockdown in April 2020.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
- Measuring Psychosocial Reactions to COVID-19: TheFrontiers in psychology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe health crisis caused by COVID-19 has led many countries to opt for social quarantine of the population. During this quarantine, communication systems have been characterized by disintermediation, the acceleration of digitization and an infodemic (excess and saturation of information). The following debate arises: Do the levels related to the psychotic phenotype and pseudoscientific beliefs related to the interpretation of information vary before and after social quarantine?
objectivesThis research aims to examine the psychological effects of social quarantine on the psychotic phenotype and pseudoscientific beliefs-experiences of the general nonclinical population. The following hypothesis was posed: social quarantine alters the levels of magical thinking, pseudoscientific beliefs and anomalous perceptions due to quarantine.
methodsA pre- and posttest analysis design was applied based on the difference in means, and complementary Bayesian estimation was performed. A total of 174 Spanish subjects responded to different questionnaires that evaluated psychopathological risks based on psychotic phenotypes, pseudoscientific beliefs and experiences before and after quarantine.
resultsSignificant differences were obtained for the variables positive psychotic symptoms, depressive symptoms, and certain perceptual alterations (e.g., cenesthetic perceptions), and a significant increase in pseudoscientific beliefs was also observed. The perceptual disturbances that increased the most after quarantine were those related to derealization and depersonalization. However, paranoid perceptions showed the highest increase, doubling the initial standard deviation. These high increases could be related to the delimitation of physical space during social quarantine and distrust towards information communicated by the government to the population. Is it possible that social alarmism generated by the excess of information and pseudoscientific information has increased paranoid perceptual alterations?
conclusionsMeasures taken after quarantine indicate that perceptual disturbances, subclinical psychotic symptoms and beliefs in the pseudoscience have increased. We discuss which elements of quarantine coincide with the social marginality theory and its clinical repercussions.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.